


Look at Me Now

by orphan_account



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: And she deserved better, Character Death, Eliza is a cinnamon roll, F/M, Friendship/Love, Gen, John is dead, Lafayette's in france, Letters, Loneliness, Lonely Alexander, Minor Alexander Hamilton/Maria Reynolds, Miss Maria Reynolds, Multi, Poor Alexander, Referenced Affairs, Religion, Talking To Dead People
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-22
Updated: 2016-11-22
Packaged: 2018-09-01 10:31:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,659
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8621041
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Eliza is gone. Maria is helpless. John Laurens is dead. And Alexander is so lonely. 
Or, after getting into the worst mess of his life, Alexander Hamilton writes a letter to his dead best friend.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Obviously, this story mentions an affair. However, it doesn't do anything more than mention briefly that there was an affair, and describes it as being the wrong thing to do (since it was), so rest assured that there is nothing... questionable... in the fic. I wouldn't write something like... that. Oh look, I made it awkward. Anyway, please read and leave a review telling me what you think. I loooooove reviews.

My dearest, Laurens, 

I wrote those same words to Angelica once. I called her my dearest. Looking back on the letters my pen has just formed and those that it formed months and months ago to my sister, I see that they are slightly more applicable to you than to her, even though she is the one who remains for them to apply to. Truly, it is wholly ridiculous for me to be writing this. There is no way that you can read these words now that you have left me, but there is no one here for me to speak to - and even if there were, you are the only person I would trust with the words. 

I have done a terrible thing. Recently, Eliza decided to take our son on a holiday upstate to visit with her father for the summer. I declined to accompany them, as I was preoccupied with my work. You know how I throw myself on and will not rest until my goal is reached. So do I act in this instance. Though my heart wished for a break, my mind and my sensibilities were firmly planted here, and so I stayed. As I worked at my Philadelphia home, a woman named Maria Reynolds called on me and told me that she had been abandoned by her husband. The girl is twenty-three years old and very pretty, with long wavy black hair and golden-brown skin. Perhaps too pretty. I took pity on her and offered her a loan, which I agreed to deliver that night. And now... I feel the weight of my mistake and my sin and my shame pressing down on me. I am better than this, I am smarter than this, but there is no going back. I, who swore vows to Eliza, am having an affair. 

I don't know what has come over me. I love Eliza, that I know, and my love for her has never wavered - indeed now I feel it, though perhaps subdued somewhat. Every breath I take sends a pang through me now that I must live knowing I betrayed her. And yet, somehow I wonder if she can truly understand me. I have been lonely for the past eight years. Against your will, you left me, and then Lafayette left me and returned to his homeland. Now Eliza is gone, and I am left alone to my work - and this work will be presented before a man who I hate and who hates me, Thomas Jefferson. Do I truly work out of a wish to better my nation, or just to prove my point and rub it into his vile face? Even the general treats me with an air of coldness - though as he has much on his mind lately, as President. That is understandable. Still, I cannot help but feel lonely, surrounded only by enemies and a family I have not the time for. Amidst those two groups, though, I have lost several of my friends. Burr despises me. Washington ignores me. 

At the same time, I have shut out the friends that I do have. Letters from Lafayette pour in nearly every week, all asking me what has befallen me that I do not reply. I rarely write back. It is not that anything has befallen me, but I either do not have the time, or I feel... angry. I have the deepest, most ridiculous anger inside of me, which has no logic or basis. I try to push this anger away, for it is so foolish, so senseless - the sort of anger only a child should feel. And yet try as I may, I cannot force it from myself. I am angry with Lafayette. I am angry that he left me. You must surely think that I am the greatest fool to ever live, and certainly I feel so, but, there it is. I want him here, right here, right next to me, rather than an ocean away with only his letters to keep my company. I should be grateful I even have those - I will never receive a letter from you again, after all - but somehow, the deep selfishness within me wanted him to stay, as if there was any possible way he could. Simultaneously, I am angry that you are gone, that you cannot be here with me. I thrive, John, off of friendships, bonds deeper than mere love or companionship can be. 

I do not call Maria my friend. I am not sure if I love her or not. Certainly, she is very beautiful, and entirely pitiable. Mostly, though, she knows what it is like to be alone. Her husband abandoned her, she says, leaving her flat. She has been alone and friendless for some time now, and therefore understands me. Indeed, she assured me of this a dozen times as she accompanied me back to my home early in the morning, filling the silence with empty chatter. She is not very intelligent, but she has plenty to say. I don't know if I will see her again, but she gave me her home address should I forget the way, and asked for mine that she might write to me from time to time. I gave it to her. Perhaps that was a mistake, but when she stood there, looking so frightened, so innocent - innocent, even then - and helpless, I could hardly have denied her anything. 

Starved for company, starved for companionship, I let her walk into my life and tried to use her to fill a hole inside of me. Again, in my folly, I make choices of an idiotic nature. Maria cannot fill that emptiness. No one can. It has been there since the day you were taken from me, and no words, no actions, no people, can mend it. Indeed, I am sure it will remain until my death, the day when at last I will see you again. I knew you only for a short time, in the grand scheme of life, but it was the best time God has even seen to bless me with. Your Alexander has gone and made himself a fool, and yet still he is your Alexander, and knows, somehow, that despite his sins and mistakes, you would not cease to love him, were the world still graced with your presence upon it. The world did not deserve you, John, and I did not deserve you, just as I do not deserve Eliza or Lafayette or Angelica. Is that why you had to leave the world? Is that also why I am doomed to suffer - given a taste of heaven with you and my other friends, and then forced to endure knowing that that brief bit of heaven came to me by mistake? Was that why you were stolen from me? I am the greatest of sinners, the worst of men, and yet I could call myself friend to the best of them. I am selfish, treacherous, cruel, petty, jealous. I want to have everything and then I lament when I do. 

May God strike me down now, that Eliza will not have to return and live innocently, perfectly, alongside a husband who is unworthy to lay eyes on her. May he strike me, that Lafayette will no longer waste paper and time on a friend who has turned his back and treated him with cruelty - I recognize these faults, and yet I do nothing to correct them. But if God struck me, I would see you again... or would I? I am told that the Lord forgives all sin, but mine are so many and so great that perhaps even He could not ignore them, and would instead send me to burn forever, apart from you. Surely I would deserve it. 

As I write now, I hear a knocking at my door, and I know it is Maria. I should send her away, but somehow, I doubt I will do that. Still, now I am thinking of you, and speaking to you, and I cannot tarnish my love for you by setting you aside to feign love for her. For, truly, John, I did love you and I still do, just as I loved and love Lafayette, and Hercules, and the general, and even, I suppose, Burr, though should he ever find out, I would deny it profusely. At the same time, though, I have no desire to turn her away. She does not deserve that, even if she is a sinner, and perhaps the only one I know who is my equal (excluding Jefferson). Is that why I continue to associate with her? Because she matches me in sin?

The knocking has ceased, and she has left. I cannot hold back my sigh of relief. All the same, feelings of foolishness rise in me with every word I pen. You are gone, and nothing I write can bring you back. I could have spent this time, instead to write to Lafayette, who is still living. Better yet, I could have gone to a church and served penance, and asked God's forgiveness, and written to Maria telling her to stay away. But I have needed to pour out my heart for some time, and as you have always held such a large portion of it, you are the only one I could have penned these words to. 

My work beckons me. At last I must put aside my foolishness in writing this and turn to it, or the general - the President - will be angry. So at last I will close this letter and then turn my attention to what I am to do with it, since I have nowhere to send it. I hope that somehow, the Lord will let you see it, and then you can know that even now you are in my thoughts and in my heart. Farewell. I love you always. 

Yours forever,

Alexander. 

 


End file.
